Commissioner General of the Education Publications, Jayantha Wickramanayake was summoned before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry probing fraud and corruption over the past 04 years, yesterday(June 03).
The Commissioner General appeared before the commission to testify on the alleged fraudulent conduct related to printing textbooks.
The five member bench lead by former Supreme court justice, Upali Abeyrathna recorded statements on the 1st of June as well.
It was revealed at the commission that minister Akila Viraj was the only minister to include his image and publish letters with his signature on school textbooks which was government property.
The commission pointed out to the Commissioner General that there were Education ministers in the past who did not even include their name on school textbooks.
During the hearing, the commission discovered complications in the tender procedure for the publication of textbooks. However the commissioner noted that an additional amount was not charged to include the minister’s photograph in textbooks.
According to the commission, the printing of the text books had been done without proper calculation on the number of color pages in textbooks, the printing had been conducted based on the assumption that all the pages were color prints.
The chairperson of the commission, Upali Abeyrathna noted that the misuse of tax payers money in this incident should not be considered minute.
Dr Wijayadasa Rajapaksa complained to the PCoI regarding the misuse of public funds in the publication of 29 million textbooks in 2018 as the subject minister’s photograph was included in the each textbook.
